West End Centre

West End Centre a cultural oasis in the cultural wasteland of Aldershot

upright piano in the bar

West End Centre is a cultural oasis in the cultural wasteland that is Aldershot, located in what was a former school, a few minutes walk from the dead and dying town centre.

They host music and comedy, occasional drama.

During the day, art, languages and other activities.

Tucked in one corner of the bar, a battered old piano, but on hitting a few keys, it does appear to be in tune and thus playable.

Their use of social media is at times dire, especially twitter, which is rather sad as it gives a total misleading impression of the venue, as you find it you pay a visit.

A rare exception, and a very clever idea, was retweet and we will put you in a draw for a free CD. An excellent idea and ought to be a condition for all acts when booked. Provide us with a few free albums, or a download code if on bandcamp (and if not, why not?) and we will offer to the punters. A win-win all round. Whoever is on gets publicised, their music gets spread around, the West End Centre gets free publicity.

Congratulations to @keithpp, @sarahmowat and @daveface86 – winners of a @DukeSpecial CD! Let us know how you want to receive your prize—
west end centre (@teamwesty) April 12, 2013

We have 5 copies of Duke Special album Oh Pioneer to give away to a good home before his gig here on Wed 17 Apr. Retweet to enter the draw!—
west end centre (@teamwesty) April 02, 2013

Amazing gig from @DukeSpecial at @teamwesty tonight, fabulous solo set complete with audience singalongs plus an encore on the bar piano!—
Matt Legge (@the_villain) April 17, 2013

@teamwesty @DukeSpecial Just got home, what a fantastic night! Especially the encore on the old Joanna in the foyer!—
Carl Pickles (@carl_pix) April 17, 2013

This could backfire if people did not like the music. But if not, hand back or pass on. But if people do like, more likely to tell their friends.

West End Centre is marking Word Book Night. This would be a good time to launch Westend Centre as a BookCrossing zone. Ask people to bring along books which can be left lying around for others to collect and release into the wild.

As a small venue, it would be of value to others if they contributed 360 words to The 360 Deal on what they look for when booking.

• Julia K at the West End Centre
• Mike Dawes and Amy Turk at the West End Centre

Theatre of Dionysus

Theatre of Dionysus

The slopes of the Acropolis are important for its many springs and have been inhabited since prehistoric times. There are many archaeological remains, one of the most important the Theatre of Dionysus on the southern slope, entrance almost opposite the Acropolis Museum.

It was here that classical Greek drama was born and flourished.

Nearby the Sanctuary of Dionysus and bronze foundries. Further along the slope Odeon of Herodes Atticus, used for music.

Castillo de San Felipe

El Castillo de San Felipe, on the edge of Playa Jardín, is a 17th century colonial style fort which used to protect the town from attacks by corsairs and pirates. It is one of three fortifications which used to exist in the town.

Built under Phillip IV between 1630 and 1644. Subsequently abandoned and allowed to fall into ruin after the flood of 1826, as its original purpose as a defence against English privateers was no longer needed.

Apart from guarding the town, the castle also guarded a small harbour located at the mouth of the Barranco de San Felipe. It was this that gave the castle its original name – Castillo del Puerto Viejo.

Castillo de San Felipe is now used as a cultural space for exhibitions, music recitals and drama.

Finding it open is a problem. Only three times have I found it open but was not allowed in, changing art exhibition, rehearsals (twice).

A very misearble man manning it, a typical council jobsworth.

Yesterday it was open, or should have been open. There was due a midday recital, but it was cancelled due to illness of the pianist. A miserable woman, another typical jobsworth, refuused to let anyone in to the art exhibition, even though they had made the effort to tun up for the midday concert. Her unhelpful attitude was one of ´come back Tuesday´.

A New Cycle of Mystery Plays

New Testament stories revisited and set in present day pre-Christmas London, introduced by Rev Dr Giles Fraser, former Canon-Chancellor of St Paul’s and now Priest-in-Charge, St Mary, Newington.

In the run up to Christmas, five newly commissioned short plays inspired by the medieval Mystery Plays. Each one is a reworking of a New Testament Story, reset in the contemporary world.

Broadcast on BBC Radio 3, but the BBC once again displays its usual crass stupidity, and these five plays are only being held on-line for seven days.

• A New Cycle of Mystery Plays

To Catch a Thief

To Catch a Thief

American John Robie is living quietly in the South of France, trying to put his career as a notorious jewel thief behind him. However, when a series of huge jewel thefts begins on the Riviera, targetting rich Americans, the police immediately suspect he’s returned to his old ways. To prove his innocence, and trap the real thief, Robie must resort to subterfuge. But his plans go awry when the daughter of one of the rich American tourists takes rather too close an interest in him – and his past.

John Robie was a cat burglar, who worked for the French Resistance. The French Police are prepared to turn a blind eye to his past activities, so long as he does not return to them.

When a copy-cat cat burglar carries out a series of daring jewel robberies, the French Police naturally think he has turned to his old ways, and he once again becomes a wanted man.

He turns to his old friends in the French Resistance for a fake passport in order that he may leave France. They though have other ideas. The French Police are turning up the heat on their own criminal activities. Yes, they will help, but only if he first helps to catch the jewel thief.

To Catch a Thief by David Dodge (1910-1974), once a Hitchcock thriller, now dramatised for BBC Radio 4.

Although writing crime fiction, David Dodge considered himself a travel writer.

A strange mix of Raymond Chandler and his detective Philip Marlowe and Dorothy L Sayers and amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey (with a bit of Bertie Wooster thrown in for good measure).

BBC once again shoot themselves in the foot, only held on-line for seven days.

Paulo Coelho set The Winner Stands Alone in the same location in the south of France.

St Mark’s Christmas Concert

Each year, the children of St Mark’s Primary School put on a Christmas Concert.

It would normally take place in St Mark’s Church, but the boiler has failed. Electric heaters have been installed, these overloaded the wring, and the cables burnt out.

Thus the concert took place in the Church Hall.

It was standing room only. I was in a way lucky, I arrived as the concert was due to start. I was stood by the door. Had I been in the hall, it would have been too hot.

The concert was a musical. Told through the eyes of children asking for a bedtime story.

Some quite amusing little ditties. I am not sure if they were meant to be amusing but that is how it came across.

A brilliant foot-tapping jazz number, with Herod as the centre piece as the wicked king.

At the end of the concert, the church was presented with a cheque for over a thousand pounds by the school for a new boiler. Still a very long way to go, an estimated cots of £25,000.

The concert was followed by mulled wine and minced pies.

No photos. A box ticking exercise that does nothing to protect children.

This evening a Rock n Roll Christmas. It will either be rubbish or brilliant. We wait to see.

The Count of Monte Cristo

seaman Edmond Dantès

The effect of the serials, which held vast audiences enthralled … is unlike any experience of reading we are likely to have known ourselves, maybe something like that of a particularly gripping television series. Day after day, at breakfast or at work or on the street, people talked of little else. — Carlos Javier Villafane Mercado

At the age of nineteen, seaman Edmond Dantès has a charmed life – about to be promoted to Captain, and engaged to the beautiful Mercédès. But Marseilles in 1815 is a dangerous place, and three of Dantes’ acquaintances set in train a chain of events that will lead Edmond to fourteen years of solitary confinement in the notorious Chateau D’If.

Our story starts at Chateau D’If, with a body being tipped into the sea. Edmond Dantès has managed to escape by exchanging places with a dead man.

Just at the moment his escape is discovered, a bloated body of a dead Maltese seaman floats by. Dantès quickly exchanges his prison garb with that of the seaman. From now on, he will be known as Maltese.

The reason for his escape, revenge, revenge on those who betrayed him and caused him to be cast into prison.

Lucky for Dantès, a passing ship rescues him, thinking he is a survivor from the Maltese ship wrecked on the rocks. The passing ship are smugglers.

Fourteen years earlier, Dantès has brought a ship home as First mate after the Captain died. The dying wish of the Captain, was to divert to Elba and deliver a package to Napoleon. It is this act that leads to his betrayal, this is France, with a restored king post-revolution.

Brilliant 4-part dramatisation of The Count of Monte Cristo by BBC Radio 4.

Alexandre Dumas was born in 1802. His father, the illegitimate son of a marquis, was a general in the revolutionary armies, but died when Alexandre was four years old. His most successful novels were The Count of Monte Cristo (serialised between 1844-1846) and the Three Musketeers (1844).

The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) was originally published in the Journal des Débats in eighteen parts. Publication ran from 28 August 1844 to 15 January 1846.

Dumas wrote that the idea of revenge in The Count of Monte Cristo came from a story in a book compiled by Jacques Peuchet, a French police archivist, published in 1838 after the death of the author. Dumas included this essay in one of the editions from 1846. Peuchet told of a shoemaker, Pierre Picaud, living in Nîmes in 1807, who was engaged to marry a rich woman when three jealous friends falsely accused him of being a spy for England. Picaud was placed under a form of house arrest, in the Fenestrelle Fort where he served as a servant to a rich Italian cleric. When the man died, he left his fortune to Picaud whom he had begun to treat as a son. Picaud then spent years plotting his revenge on the three men who were responsible for his misfortune. He stabbed the first with a dagger on which were printed the words, “Number One”, and then he poisoned the second. The third man’s son he lured into crime and his daughter into prostitution, finally stabbing the man himself. This third man, named Loupian, had married Picaud’s fiancée while Picaud was under arrest.

To coincide with the broadcast of The Count of Monte Cristo, the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 Tom Reiss’s account of the life of Alexandre Dumas’s father – General Alex Dumas, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo.

• Alexandre Dumas Society (English)
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• The Count of Monte Cristo – Paris Walking Tour
• The Count of Monte Cristo (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) By Alexandre Dumas

The Laughing Policeman

Martin Beck is now a Detective Superintendant. But his promotion hasn’t made him any more cheerful; if anything, it’s only confirmed his gloomy belief that the best way to solve crimes is by hard slog, dogged persistence, a grimly realistic view of human nature – and the occasional flash of sheer intuition. His team of colleagues, headed by Lennart Kollberg and Frederick Melander, are used to his stubborn ways and his frequent colds. His wife Inga isn’t as tolerant.

The Laughing Policeman begins on the evening of a big demonstration in Stockholm against the Vietnam war; as the police are dealing with protesters outside the American embassy, a mass shooting on a bus in a suburb ends with nine dead, including one of Martin Beck’s team. The trail to find the murderer leads Beck back to an unsolved case from the past that had puzzled the Swedish police for years.

The Laughing Policeman is the fourth of the Martin Beck series, dramatised by BBC Radio 4. Written by the husband and wife team of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.

For some perverse reason (the BBC do not say why), it is not possible to listen to The Laughing Policeman.

The Martin Beck series, written over a period of ten years 1965-1975, gives an interesting insight into Sweden of the mid-1960s. It was to later influence writers like Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo.

• The Martin Beck Killings: Roseanna

In an ambitious project, BBC Radio 4 are dramatizing the entire Martin Beck series.

The next book in the series, The Fire Engine That Disappeared. A case of arson hinges on finding a man who fits an impossibly vague description.

Unusual for the BBC these dramatisations are being kept on-line for a year, not seven days. Though does beg the question why not keep indefinitely?

• From Stockholm to Motala, journey through Beck’s Sweden accompanied by quotes from the books

In parallel BBC Radio 4 has a series Foreign Bodies looking at European Detective Fiction, only they could not have chosen a worst presenter than the ghastly Mark Lawson if they had tried. True to form, this series is only being kept on-line for seven days.

• Scandinavian fiction

The Man on the Balcony

Someone is assaulting and killing young girls in the parks of Stockholm. With only a brutal mugger and a three year-old boy for witnesses, the investigation is stalling. It’s only a tiny detail surfacing in Beck’s mind that puts the murder squad on the trail of the killer, but will they get him before he strikes again?

The Man on the Balcony is the third in the Martin Beck series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, dramatised by BBC Radio 4.

The Martin Beck series, written over a period of ten years 1965-1975, gives an interesting insight into Sweden of the mid-1960s. It was to later influence writers like Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo.

• The Martin Beck Killings: Roseanna

In an ambitious project, BBC Radio 4 are dramatizing the entire Martin Beck series.

The next book in the series, The Laughing Policeman, Martin Beck (now a Detective Superintendant) and the murder squad investigate a mass shooting on a bus in a suburb that ends with nine dead, including one of Martin Beck’s team.

Unusual for the BBC these dramatisations are being kept on-line for a year, not seven days. Though does beg the question why not keep indefinitely?

• From Stockholm to Motala, journey through Beck’s Sweden accompanied by quotes from the books

In parallel BBC Radio 4 has a series Foreign Bodies looking at European Detective Fiction, only they could not have chosen a worst presenter than the ghastly Mark Lawson if they had tried. True to form, this series is only being kept on-line for seven days.

• Scandinavian fiction

Rebus: The Black Book

Detective Inspector John Rebus, investigates an unsolved murder.

DS Brian Holmes is left in a coma after being severely beaten, Rebus discovers his colleague’s black notebook contains coded clues on a case involving arson and murder. Five years before, a mysterious fire burned down Edinburgh’s seedy Central Hotel. All the staff and customers were accounted for but an unidentified body was found in the rubble. The post mortem revealed the victim had died from a bullet through the heart before the fire broke out.

The attack on his brother can only mean that Rebus is close to deciphering the secrets of the black book – but can he track down those responsible for the Central Hotel murder before they decide that it will take more than a warning to stop his investigation?

Dramatised as classic serial on BBC Radio 4.

Whilst I am quite happy for Ian Rankin to be dramatised by Radio 4, I do not think the Classic Serial is the appropriate slot.

BBC Scotland, recorded live in Glasgow.

BBC once again demonstrates crass stupidity, only on-line for seven days. Pt 1 only a few minutes left to listen.

• Rebus: The Black Book (pt 1) (pt 2)

Ian Rankin (1960- ) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for his Inspector Rebus novels. The Black Book was the fifth in the Inspector Rebus series. Not to be confused by the novel of the same name by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk.

As a bonus for the Guildford Book Festival, Ian Rankin will be at the Radisson Blu Edwardian Guildford on 11 December 2012 to talk about his latest book and for book signing.